The Witch and the Pants - Round 12 of the QLFC
by AnnieBrodieSangster
Summary: Written for Round 12 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Oneshot. Parody/Harry Potter Adaptation of Princess and the Pea. James helps Lily out in a time of need and does a little experiment.


_Quidditch League Round 12_

_Position: Beater 1_

_Prompts:_

_(word) Bleeding_

_(word) Starstruck_

_(word) Hate_

_Task: Write about/an adaptation/a story based on the fairytale "Princess and the Pea"._

_Word Count: 2,610_

James frowned down at the parchment in front of him. It definitely said to do two short wand flicks to the left, a diagonal loop to the right then curl back. But that's what he just _did_, yet the quill did not fly into the air. Was he saying it right?

"_Alarte Ascendare," _he said again, speaking the incantation clearly and deftly flicking and looping his wand just as the textbook described. The quill did a feeble hop, no more than a centimetre off the desk. He sighed. What had happened to him? In 6th year, James hadn't always been the best – that spot was reserved for a certain green eyed redhead – but he'd only been _good_ on his worst days. Most of the time, he was still brilliant at it.

But ever since the start of Seventh year, he'd been slipping. Now he couldn't even master Alarte Ascendare!

"It's because you're doing pronouncing it wrong," came a soft voice from the other side of the room. James' head snapped round as he saw the green eyed redhead in question cross the room and sit on the sofa opposite him.

She picked up her wand and pointed it at the quill. "Alarte ascendare," she said, while moving her wand in the desired pattern. The quill leapt high into the air and fell back down. Just before it hit the desk, James reached out a hand and caught it.

"That's what I did," he complained, placing the quill back on the desk.

Lily raised an eyebrow. "Do it again," she said. James did, and she nodded. "I see the problem," she told him knowingly. "You're pronouncing it a-lar-_tey _ah-sen-deh-_rey, _instead of a-_lar_-tey ah-_sen_-deh-rey."

James shook his head. "I don't have a clue what you're saying, Evans."

Lily sighed. "Do I have to spell it out for you? Is _sounding_ it out not enough?"

Scowling, James snatched the quill from the table and stood up. "I don't need your help," he said coldly, and stormed off to his room.

"Fine," she snapped, just before his door slammed shut.

"I'm sorry about yesterday," James muttered, when Lily entered their common room the next morning. To his credit, he did look quite ashamed, but Lily knew that wasn't enough to stop him doing it again.

She walked straight past him, to the portrait door. "Wait!" James called, as she lifted a hand to swing it open.

She dropped her hand and turned back to face him, hands on her hips. "What?" she asked, her voice like ice.

"I just want you to know," he said, his expression suddenly turning from guilty to smirking. "I managed the charm. Without you."

Lily glared at him and left. Left alone in the common room, James sighed. If he wanted to win her over, why did he just keep making it harder for himself?

_Right_, he vowed silently to himself, _from now on, I will stop being unpleasant and try to find a way to make Lily love me._

"James Potter, I swear to _Merlin_, sometimes I just _hate_ you! No, forget that, I _always_ hate you!" tears were welling in her eyes and she wiped them angrily away with the palms of her hands. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"Lily, I swear, I didn't mean for any of that to happen, you've got to believe me!" James rushed towards her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

She shrugged it off and turned to him, her face suddenly blank, devoid of any emotion. "Why? Why should I believe you? I don't owe you any favours."

James stepped back and turned away, so she couldn't see the hurt expression on his face. "You're right," he said softly. "You don't owe me anything. But one day, you might need a favour from me, and why would I help you if you don't help me out, now, by believing me? You don't have to forgive me, Lily. I just want you to believe me when I say I never meant to hurt you."

"How do I know that's true?" she asked, so quietly James wasn't sure he hadn't just imagined her voice.

He gave a sad smile. "Because three months ago, I vowed that I would stop being horrible to you and try to make you love me."

He paused. He hadn't meant to say that last bit. Lily lifted her head and stared at him, her eyes wide. "Try to make me _what_?" she asked, horrified.

"Oh Merlin, I didn't mean to say that, Lily, really I didn't, I-"

She shook her head. "I don't care," she said. "Because you know what? I'm done. I'm done with drama, I'm done with lying and most of all…" she sighed. "I'm done with you. We're heads together, and that's it. I'm not taking any more of your stupid, childish, idiotic behaviour. Just leave me alone, okay? Just leave me alone."

James stared at her, mouth open. "What?" he finally managed to ask, after finding his voice. But Lily was already walking away.

It was pouring with rain, and a soaked and bleeding Lily rushed into the entrance hall. Where could she go? Not the hospital wing; no way. There'd be all kinds of awkward questions she'd have to answer. Questions she _couldn't_ answer without getting many people in trouble. She couldn't go to Violet and Sophie's dorm since they currently hated her. Lily had a feeling the rest of the Gryffindor common room wouldn't be too pleased to see their fail-of-a-Head-Girl, either.

There was really only one place she _could _go. But that was currently where James Potter and his band of _Marauders_ currently resided. Four people who she had managed to avoid talking to ever since her and James' big fight, exactly two months and fourteen days ago.

She couldn't see them. She _couldn't_. They would be worse than Pomfrey with their relentless questions. But never mind them, Potter would be bad enough on his own. Still, she would have to return to her dorm at some point, and it may as well be now rather than later.

Trudging up the many staircases, Lily tried to wipe away most of the blood. If only she'd thought to bring her wand with her, she could have made short work of these wounds. But, idiot that she was, Lily had decided to leave it behind while she went on this dangerous quest into the Forbidden Forest. Her reasoning to leave it on her bed had seemed solid enough at the time…

After what seemed like an age, Lily arrived at the Head's dormitories. Wearily, she pulled open the portrait hole and stepped inside. As suspected, Potter, Black, Lupin and Pettigrew were lounging around on the seats around the fireplace. Also as she had guessed would happen, Potter leapt up at the sight of her.

Lily put her head down and tried to rush across the room away from him, but the world tilted at an alarming angle and she suddenly found herself on the floor, staring at the ceiling. _Maybe my cuts are worse than I thought_, she had time to think, before everything swam out of view and her vision went black.

"Lily! Lily, please wake up. Lily… Oh _merlin_, Moony, what's happened to her? Look at all that blood… Lily, wake _up_!"

James was knelt by Lily's side. As soon as she fell, he was there, catching her and lowering her gently to the ground. "What should we do, Prongs?" Sirius asked, regarding Lily with trepidation. "I mean, you don't owe her anything. We should just leave her there."

Staring at Sirius, James looked horrified by this idea. "Of course I'm going to help her, Padfoot! I _have_ to!" Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Don't worry, I won't be long. I'll just clean off the blood and put her in bed."

Remus groaned. "You can't put her to bed, James," he said.

"Why not?"

Rolling his eyes, Remus walked over to her door and opened it. "Because Pettigrew trashed it while he was under that spell, remember? It's a complete mess."

James' glared at Peter. "I still can't believe you did that, Wormtail."

"It wasn't me! Padfoot was the one controlling me!" he exclaimed indignantly.

Turning on Sirius now, James nodded. "You're right. Sorry, Wormtail. I can't believe _you_ did that, Padfoot!"

Now it was Sirius' turn to look indignant. "But you said I could!" he cried.

James frowned. "No I didn't," he said.

"Oh yeah," Sirius agreed. "Well, who cares? The past is the past, we can't take it back."

James scowled in defeat. He gently picked up the unconscious Lily and held her tenderly in his arms, staring down at her slumbering face for a few moments. Then, after a slight hesitation, he took her into his room. "I'd better go help him," Remus said, walking to the door to James' room. "And make sure he doesn't do anything he'll regret," he added as an afterthought.

When Remus entered James' room, he saw the Head Boy, still holding the unconscious Head Girl, staring with a pained expression at his bed. "What is it?" the werewolf asked.

James turned to him. "I was going to let her sleep on my bed," he began slowly. "But then I remembered I have a load of dirty underwear, chocolate frog wrappers, and Merlin knows what else under my mattress. I can't let her sleep on all that, can I?"

Remus shrugged. "Why don't you just take all the rubbish out from underneath the mattress and, I don't know, clean it up?" James laughed so hard at that, he almost dropped Lily.

"As if!" he cried. "No, I'm _not_ cleaning my bed – not for her, not for anyone. There must be something else I can do…"

"Hang on," Remus said, and dashed from the room. James was left standing there, his arms slowly starting to lose feeling from the heavy – although it was a completely perfect, ladylike weight, of course – deadweight in his arms.

He knew he was being a bit childish – it was just a bed, there was nothing bad about cleaning it. And the fact that he was doing it for Lily certainly made him want to do it, but she was mad at him. She wanted him to stay away. She _didn't_ want him to do things for her that he wouldn't normally do.

Remus opened the door and walked through. His wand was pointed at something behind him, which floated through the door after him a moment later.

James stared. "Moony…" he said slowly. "Is that Lily's mattress?"

Nodding, Remus shrugged. "Pile the two mattresses up. I'm sure Lily won't be able to feel all of that junk if she's separated by _two_ mattresses. And if she does feel it," he chuckled, "well I guess she must be a princess or something." James raised an eyebrow and the werewolf sighed. "Princesses are, in theory, really tender. If Lily can feel your pants through all that bedding, I guess she must be a princess!"

Remus was joking when he said this, James was sure, but something in it intrigued him. "Okay," he said. "Let's do this."

So he eased Lily on to the floor while they placed her mattress on top of James'. Remus even transfigured a pillow into a _third_ mattress to put on top, because James wasn't satisfied that it was a fair test. "Okay," he said eventually. "Let's place her up there."

James was eating breakfast in the Great Hall with the rest of the Marauders when Lily staggered in the next morning. She looked thoroughly disheveled and was she still wearing her _pyjamas__?_ Lily scanned the Hall quickly until she spotted James.

A moment later, she had marched over to them. James stood up, readying himself for a telling off from her, when- "Thank you," she said quietly.

James stared at her meek face. She… She wasn't mad? "You're not mad?" he asked, amazed.

Shaking her head, Lily managed a small chuckle. "You didn't owe me anything, like you said before. But you still helped me. So thank you, for that."

"Leaving you there was never an option," James replied sincerely, feeling pleased when he saw a slight blush appear in Lily's cheeks. Could she be warming to him?

"Even so," she continued, brushing away James' tender words that made her stomach feel like it was dissolving into a storm of butterflies. "You shouldn't have gone to all that effort, with the mattresses and whatnot."

James shook his head. "When are you going to realise, Lily?" he asked, amused. "I can only give you the best," he took a deep breath. Now was the time to see; was she the Princess of his dreams, or just another normal witch? "So did you sleep alright? I trust the bed was comfortable?"

Lily nodded. "It was lovely, thanks," she said, smiling. James tried not to show his disappointment. She couldn't feel the pants underneath the bottom mattress. She wasn't his fair Princess who he had helped in a time of need, she was just a witch he was besotted with who he had helped in a time of need. He slumped back into his chair.

"That's great," he said halfheartedly. "I'm glad you had a nice enough night – well, after everything that must have happened to get you in the position of staggering in halfway through the night, bleeding and dirty. Unless, of course, you enjoyed the events that led up to that – and you may well have, I'm not one to judge." He knew he was rambling, but he couldn't stop. Things couldn't go back to the way they were before. They _couldn't_. "But as long as everything was comfortable-"

Lily held up a hand, silencing him instantly. "Well as a matter of fact, now that you mention it," she said, giving him a cheeky grin. "It couldn't kill you to take the pants out from underneath next time you entertain women in your bed."

James' eyes widened. He leapt up from his seat again and threw his arms around Lily. "You felt them?" he whispered. She laughed into his shoulder and just the sound of it made his whole body tingle with happiness.

"Of course I did," she whispered in reply. "It was like sleeping on a really bumpy hillside all night. I was just being polite before," she laughed again, and he joined her.

James let her go and held her out at arm's length. He was about to tell her about Remus' Princess Theory, when she beat him to it. "Have you heard of The Princess and the Pea?" she blurted out.

Well… That _sounded_ like Moony's story, but he hadn't called it that. Was that the story Moony had been talking about, or was it completely unrelated? He glanced at Remus, who nodded. "Yes," he said.

Lily grinned. "Well then… I guess we just proved I'm a princess," she joked.

Pulling her into another hug, James shook his head. "Not just any old princess," he said. Lily made a protesting noise and he hastily corrected himself. "Not just any _young_ princess," he corrected," but _my_ Princess."

"I'm fine with that," she breathed. "As long as you don't have any other princesses."

James sighed with happiness. He had been waiting so, _so_ long for Lily to say this kind of thing. "Believe me, I don't want any other princesses, so long as I have you," he promised. "I am completely starstruck by you, Lily."

"So am I," she said, and James was so very thankful for his pants.


End file.
